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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 



BY 



GEORGE ELLSWORTH JOHNSON 

'I 

SUPERINTENDENT OF THE PITTSBURG PLAYGROUND ASSOCIATION 
AUTHOR OF ''education BY PLAYS AND GAMES*' 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON . NEW YORK • CHICAGO ■ LONDON 



COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY GEORGE ELLSWORTH JOHNSON 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

910.5 X *^> C 



^^ 



GINN AND COMPANY* PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



€CI.A2655oO 



PREFACE 

Once upon a time the citizens of a certain cit)' 
were greatly interested in the nurture and training 
of children, and when the question arose as to whether 
they should build a great public school or open a 
playground, it was decided to open a playground. 
Now it came to pass, in the course of years, that the 
citizens of that city advanced so far beyond the rest 
of the human race that, in all the centuries since, 
the nations that have gone on building public schools 
and neglecting to open playgrounds have not been 
able to catch up with them even to this day. 

This is fact, not fancy. At seven years of age the 
Athenian lad entered the palaestra, which was essen- 
tially a playground. All the first and better half of 
the day was spent in g\^mnastics, dancing, games, 
and play. In the afternoon there was singing, some 
writing (the beginners wrote in the sand box or in 
sand strewn upon the ground), some reading, all in 
the open air, and then came a long period of play 
again. Such was the schooling of the Greek lad up 
to the age of ten or eleven, and it did not differ 
essentially up to the age of sixteen, except in the 

V 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

severity of the exercises. And yet the world has 
not ceased to marvel at the results of the Greek edu- 
cation. It produced the highest type of man, physi- 
cally and intellectually, that the world has ever seen, 
which Galton says was as far in advance of the mod- 
ern Englishman as the modern Englishman is in 
advance of the native African. In physical beauty, 
courage, and patriotism, in philosophy, literature, 
architecture, and art, the Greeks have been the unsur- 
passed models of the ages, and are still the inspiration 
of our schools to-day. But they placed the emphasis 
upon hygiene, exercise, games, and play, which we 
neglect, if not ignore. 

We have reversed the order of importance in edu- 
cation as it was observed by the Greeks. The Greek 
education was essentially a playground education, and 
the education most nearly approaching it to-day is 
that supplied by the playgrounds of America. To 
that classic demonstration of the educational value 
of the playground has been added in our day an 
avalanche of testimony from biology, physiology, 
anthropology, and sociology. Of the $10,000,000 
playgrounds of Chicago, President Roosevelt says : 
'' They are the greatest civic achievement the world 
has ever seen." 

While we would not, if we could, return to the 
educational methods used in Athens, yet is it not 
strange that, in their continued worship of Greek 

vi 



PREFACE 

culture and the results of Greek education, our 
schools should so sadly neglect that feature of our 
public school education which, almost alone of all 
our complicated system, bears any resemblance what- 
ever to that of the Greeks, the playground ? 

This book may encourage and help some teacher 
to make a better use of the recess and the play- 
ground. If it does, I shall rejoice, and I believe 
that teacher will rejoice with me, that the book was 
written. 



vu 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

I 

In the first place, have a recess. All need it, par- 
ticularly the bad boy, more particularly still the good 
but anaemic girl. And the teacher needs it, in a 
certain sense, more than they. Nothing will so 
strengthen her hands in all her work as entering 
with heartiness and real joy into the play life of 
her pupils. 

If you are a primary teacher, have a twenty-minute 
recess both morning and afternoon. If you do not 
know just what to do, never mind. You will know a 
number of good things if you will stop and think for 
a moment. Remember children love to dig, build, 
climb, slide, swing, run, and throw things. You know 
quite a little about all these activities, which really 
suggest a pretty good repertoire of plays and games 
for primary children. 

Let us start with the digging. Get the janitor to 
make a sand box in a corner of the yard or next to 
the school building. This box may be nothing more 
than four planks, perhaps eight inches wide, set 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

edgewise on the ground and nailed together at the 
corners. This should be filled with moist building 
sand. You will not need to tell the children what to 
do with the sand. More likely you will think that 
sand was made for children and children for sand. 
Children know almost as well what to do with 
sand as fishes know what to do with water. It will 
be a ver}^ good thing to provide a few toy spades and 




Sand Box 



pails. Blocks in the shape of bricks, but smaller, 
will add greatly to the possibilities of the sand pile. 
These blocks may be obtained at slight expense from 
any carpenter shop. Merely as a suggestion, a picture 
of a city sand box is shown on page 3. Of course the 
box is too crowded. Children ought to do more with 
a sand pile than simply stir up the sand. Given space 
enough, some blocks, and miscellaneous material, the 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

children will begin to build wonderful things — 
mountains, hills, valleys, river systems, lakes, fields, 
farms, railway systems, tunnels, telegraph lines, 
churches, public buildings, and air castles — in the 
sand. The picture of a small indoor sand box, page 4, 




A City Sand Box 

is more suggestive of what things may be done. 
To show how a sand pile may stimulate play ideals 
and evolve until the element of sand mav almost 
entirely disappear, a picture is reproduced on page 5 
from Hall's ''Story of a Sand Pile." If you will only 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

get a sand pile for your children, you will bless the 
day you did it. 

Children love to throw. If you have the money, 
buy a few soft balls. If you have not, make some 
bean bags, or get somebody else to make them for 
you. Many church societies are looking for just such 




Free Play in the Kindergarten 

work. If all else fails, have a sewing bee for teachers 
and children and make the bags. This will be good 
fun for the teachers, and especially for the children. 
It will be a good social training also, by the way. 

If you have done this much, you will want to do 
more, because your school work will have grown so 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

much easier. You will begin to remember what you 
used to play, and you will think of many things to do. 
Probably your children will ask if they may bring 
their dolls, their carts, their reins, and other toys to 
school, and you will say,'' Yes, of course, bring them." 
This will start many different plays and games, 




The Sand Pile 

particularly dramatic and imitative plays, like horse, 
train, expressman, fire engine, conductor, house, 
school, cowboy, Indian, and many others, without 
very much effort on your part. 

Children love to climb. If there is any fence or 
shed or tree in the school yard, the climbing has 

[5] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

already begun, unless you have forbidden it. If it is 
not proper for children to climb on what there is in 
the yard, then it is a religious duty to provide some- 
thing that is proper for them to climb on. It would 
not cost much to have the local carpenter (perhaps 
the janitor could do it) make a ladder and fix it to a 
rough frame so that the children could climb up and 



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Dramatic Games, ''Playing Horse" 

then slide down. On this frame or another could be 
attached a climbing pole or a rope, perhaps also fly- 
ing rings and a swing. 

You will begin to think of the tag games you used 
to play, like Wood Tag, Puss in the Corner, Drop 
the Handkerchief, Cat and Mouse. You can play 
tag games in a very small school yard, in fact in 

[6] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

your own school room, but playing out of doors 
is much better. Suppose now (to make everything 
perfectly clear and to give you no excuse for not do- 
ing it) — suppose you have fifty children in the first 
grade ; I hope you have only thirty, but to leave 
no excuse we will say fifty. At recess you go out in 
the yard. You have a little space you call your own. 




An Evolution from the Cellar Door 

perhaps no larger than thirty by forty feet. This is 
just the place to play Drop the Handkerchief, Come 
with Me, How Do You Do, Cat and Mouse, and 
many other games. The way you play Drop the 
Handkerchief — but of course you know how to play 
that game. If you don't, you must humble yourself 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

as a little child and ask your children to teach you, 
for some of them surely know it. Come with Me is 
something like Drop the Handkerchief. The chil- 
dren all stand in a circle. One runs around the out- 
side of the circle and slaps somebody on the back. 
The one slapped runs in the opposite direction. 
When the tw^o runners meet they clasp hands, swing 



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Cat and Mouse 

once around, and race for the vacant place. This 
game is varied by having the children bow when 
they meet, shake hands, and say '' How do you do " 
three times. It is then called How Do You Do. 
The game is sometimes called Slap Jack. 

Cat and Mouse is a good game for a small yard. 
The children form a circle, holding hands. The 
mouse is inside of the circle and the cat outside. 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

The cat tries to catch the mouse. The players let 
the mouse run out or in, but they tr)- to hinder the 
cat by holding their arms in front of her. When the 
mouse is caught she has to be the cat and another 
mouse is chosen. 

Another good game is The Boiler Burst. All 
gather around the catcher, who tells a simple story, 
finally introducing the words '' the boiler burst." At 




Flag Race 

these words all run to a given line or goal. Who- 
ever is caught before reaching the goal must be the 
next catcher. 

There are some simple races which are great fun 
for primary children. Girls at this age can run as 
well as boys and sometimes beat them. The Flag 
Race is a good game for even a small playground. 
Have the children in as many lines as may be 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

convenient, each line facing a child who has been 
selected to mark the end of the course. Each child 
has a small flag, and when a signal is given the chil- 
dren standing at the head of the lines run and place 
their flags in the hands of the child marking the 
end of the course, returning as quickly as possible 
to touch the one standing next in line, releasing her 
for the run. The returning runner passes down to 
the foot of the line, which meantime advances one 




Bean Bag Game 

Step so as to bring the child at the head of the line 
always at the same distance from the goal. The line 
which first deposits all its flags in the hands of the 
child who is to receive them wins. 

These racing games may be greatly varied, and 
a teacher with your ingenuity can very easily adapt 
many racing games to the children and the space. 

There are many ball games you can play on a 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

small playground. Ikit your little folks are not quite 
ready for genuine ball playing. They can toss and 
throw and catch a little and play School Ball, Bean 
Bags, and the like. A good game with bean bags 
can be played as follows. Get two boxes, one perhaps 
a foot and a half square and the other somewhat 
smaller. Fasten the smaller inside the larger. Set 
the boxes up at an angle and let the children throw 




Duck on the Rock 

bean bags into them. Each child should throw three 
bags. It counts more to throw a bag into the smaller 
box than into the larger one. 

Then there is Duck on the Rock. Only get a 
soap box for the rock and bean bags that you made 
at the bee for the ducks. The one who is ''it" 
places his duck on the rock. The others throw their 
ducks from a given line in an attempt to knock the 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

catcher's duck off the rock. The catcher tries to tag 
any one who picks up his duck to run back for an- 
other throw. If he succeeds in tagging any one be- 
fore he can cross the line, the one tagged must be 
*'it," but the catcher must replace his duck on the 
rock if it is knocked off, before he may tag any one. 
Then children love to dance and sing. Of course, 
when a child, you used to play London Bridge, Jenny 




London Bridge 

Jones, and some other of the old, traditional singing 
games, half dance, half ceremony, half drama, half 
game, and half several other of life's traditions (like 
the pedigree of the Dutchman's dog) handed down 
by many, many generations of children in play. 
These you will call to mind, or learn of some kinder- 
garten teacher, or perhaps of your children. And soon 
you will rejoice at hearing happy children's voices 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

singing Farmer in the Dell, Did You Ever See a 
Lassie, Gathering Nuts in May, As I Was Walking 
Down the Street, I Went to Visit a Friend One Day, 
Round and Round the Mulberry Bush, and others. 

But perhaps you will not yet be content and you 
will wish to have your children know some of the 
beautiful old folk dances. 

There is the simple Swedish Tailor Dance, the 
sweet Danish Greeting, the pretty Swedish Carrousel, 
the Bohemian Komarno, and the French Chimes of 
Dunkirk. If you know them not, and there is no 
teacher near who can teach you, why not ask some 
worthy Swedish, Danish, Bohemian, French, Ger- 
man, Slovak, or other mother to teach you ? It will 
bring you into new relations with the parents of your 
children, and won't they take a pride in teaching 
"teacher"! 

Now, to put all the suggestions together in a few 
lines and in convenient form for reference, the fol- 
lowing list is added : 

SUGGESTIVE LIST OF PLAYS, GAMES, AND FOLK 
DANCES, FOR PRIMARY AND KINDER- 
GARTEN CHILDREN 

Dramatic Games : bird, horse, fire engine, train, house, 
school, conductor, policeman, expressman, Indians, cowboys, 
" acting-out " stories, and the like. 

Ball Games : rolling, tossing, bouncing, kicking games ; 
School Ball ; One Old Cat ; Bean Bags ; and like games. 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

Running Games : horse races, bean-bag races, clothespin 
races ; Drop the Handkerchief ; Cat and Mouse ; Tag ; Flag 
Race ; Hoop Race ; Puss in the Corner ; How Do You Do ; 
Skip Away ; Fox and Farmer ; Numbers Change ; Birds. 

Singing Games: London Bridge; Farmer in the Dell, 
Looby Loo; I Put My Right Hand In; Oats, Peas, Beans; 
Did You Ever See a Lassie ; Gathering Nuts in May ; Walking 
to the Garden Wall ; As I Was Walking Down the Street ; 
Soldier Boy ; On the Bridge ; Meeting and Greeting ; The 
Young Musician ; I Took a Walk One Evening ; I Went to 
Visit a Friend One Day; Round and Round the Mulberry 
Bush ; Round and Round the Village. 

Dances: Maypole Dance; Tailor's Dance (Swedish); 
Greeting (Danish), Grandma's Old Sparrow (Swedish); Car- 
rousel (Swedish); I See You (Swedish) ; Shoemakers' Dance 
(Danish); Strasak (Bohemian); Komarno (Bohemian); Mother's 
Little Pigs ; Chimes of Dunkirk (French) ; Hopp Mor Annika ; 
Kull Dance (Swedish). 

Miscellaneous : Follow the Leader ; Blind Man's Buff ; 
Free Play ; in the sand with blocks, with toys ; climbing, 
swinging, jumping, wrestling, and the like ; Duck on the Rock 
(with bean bags) ; Ring Toss ; Jump Rope ; Tops ; Hoop 
Rolling ; Kites ; Jacks tones. 



[14] 



II 



But perhaps you are a teacher in the intermediate 
grades and you are not quite so brave about playing 
with your children as primar}* teachers are. Don't 
you fear. Your children love to do all the things 
that the primar\' children love to do, but in a little 
different, older, more skillful way. Perhaps they 
have outgrown the sand pile, as too limited for their 
manly powers, but I doubt it a little if only the sand 
pile has evolved as it might under your wise and 
pedagogical super\'ision. (Super\ision means giving 
your children a chance, not formal direction.) 

There ought to be some simple apparatus for girls 
and for boys to climb on, swing on, slide on ; but if 
you can't have it, never mind. 

Ver\' likelv vour school has a vard for bovs and a 
yard for girls, so that you can have t\vo playgrounds 
instead of one. That is fortunate, for although there 
are still a number of games which boys and girls in 
the intermediate grades can play together, on the 
whole they play better separated. 

Let us begin with baseball games. Girls ought to 
play ball a little. Tossing, catching. School Ball, and 
One Old Cat are all good games for girls. School 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

Ball is played with a leader who tosses the ball to 
each player in turn, each returning it to the leader. 
The game can be varied greatly. 

One Old Cat is a very simple ball game, and is 
played with a soft ball and a small bat, so that little 
space is needed and there is no danger. There is 




Inexpensive Apparatus 

one batter, one pitcher, and one catcher ; all the 
rest are fielders. There is no base running. The 
batter is out when a fly is caught or a third strike. 
If the third strike is muffed, the batter has three 
strikes more. When the batter is out the catcher 
becomes batter, the pitcher catcher, and so on. 
Two Old Cat has two bases and two batters. 

[i6] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

Batters are put out in the usual way. When a batter 
is out the players move up as in One Old Cat. 

So much for baseball games for girls. For boys, 
Long Ball, Indoor Baseball (played outdoors). Play- 
ground Ball ; and, of course, if there is room. Baseball 
may be added. Long Ball and Indoor Baseball may 




Rings and Swing 



be played after a fashion in any small playground. 
Long Ball is much like Two Old Cat, and Indoor 
Baseball like the old game of Baseball with '.' spot- 
tings " allowed ; that is, a runner may be put out by 
being hit with the ball. Boys know how to adapt 
baseball games to the space as a good tailor cuts the 
garment to the cloth, when he has to. If it is not 

[17] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

safe to use regular baseballs and bats let the boys 
use soft balls and small bats. 

The game of Long Ball is played with any con- 
venient number of players. The pitcher and catcher 
take the usual positions ; the other players scatter 
indifferently about the field. The batter endeavors 
to bat the ball as in Baseball. All hits are fair. 




School Ball 

When a batter hits the ball or has had three strikes 
(whether the third strike is caught or not), he runs to 
'' long base," which is placed some forty or fifty feet 
from the home plate. A batter is out when hit by a 
thrown ball or tagged between bases and when a fly is 
caught. Any number of runners may be on long base 
at a time. Every runner getting home scores for his 

[18] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

side. The side at bat is retired when three men are 
out or when there is no one left " home " to bat. 

You ought to know some running games. When 
you were ten or twelve years of age you played all 
kinds of running games, Tag, Hill Dill, Prisoner's 
Base, Bull in the Ring, and many others. You can 
easily adapt some form of Tag to the space you have, 




A Ball Game 

— Wood Tag, Stone Tag, Hang Tag, Hopping Tag, 
the names of w^hich suggest w^ell enough to your fer- 
tile mind some w^ay of playing them. 

Hill Dill is a good game. Two lines mark the 
goals. Anyu^here between these lines a child may 
be tagged. One is selected catcher and stands at 
one of the lines. All the other players stand just 
beyond the other line in the neutral space. The 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 



catcher says, ''Hill Dill, come over the hill, or I'll 
come over for you." At these words all attempt to 
run across the space between the lines without being 
tagged. If the catcher tags any one he must be a 
helper. The catchers take their places again at the 
other side of the field, and the cry is repeated and 
the game continued until all are caught. The first 
one caught becomes catcher in the new game. 




Relay Potato Race 

Then there are the races. The immemorial Potato 
Race can be run anywhere. Of course anything else 
is as good as potatoes, — chalk, marbles, stones, but- 
tons. Any number of children consistent with the 
space may run at a time. If you turn the race into a 
relay, all your children can run even on a very small 
playground. This is the way to manage it : Line up 
the runners as in the Flag Race, the leader of each 
column toeing a line which marks the beginning of 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

the course. At the other end of the course place a 
basket or a box, or draw a circle upon the ground. 
In front of each line of runners place several piles 
of potatoes at convenient distances apart, each pile 
containing as many potatoes as there are runners in 
each line. At the signal the runner at the head of 
the line starts to place a potato from each pile in the 
basket or circle provided. When he has done this he 
returns and touches the runner who is now at the head 
of the line (which meantime has advanced one place 
so that the boy at the head toes the line mentioned 
above), releasing him for the race. This continues 
until all have run and all the potatoes are in the 
basket or circle. The line finishing first wins. 

When space is limited, races may be extemporized 
in various ways, as jumping races, hopping races, 
three-legged races, and the like. Three Deep is a 
good game for limited space. One player is chosen 
tagger and another runner. The other players form 
two deep in concentric circles. The tagger chases 
the runner around and in and out the circles. When 
the runner is hard pressed he takes position in front 
of one of the other players, making a column three 
deep. Thereupon the outer player in that column 
becomes the runner. When a runner is tagged he 
becomes tagger and the tagger runner. 

The singing games mentioned for primary' chil- 
dren continue during this period. 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

What has been said already about folk dancing 
applies here. A few additional dances will be men- 
tioned belovy. You will be amazed to see how much 
interest will be manifested by foreign-born parents, if 
you will bring the matter to their attention, and you 
will be delighted at their ready help if you ask it. 

Under miscellaneous games you will have great 
opportunity to exercise your ingenuity. Just keep in 
mind that at this period boys particularly, but girls 
also, love to try their powers in all matters of speed, 
strength, and the cruder kinds of skill. No end of 
exercises may be adapted so as to call out their in- 
terest, through emulation, as in running, jumping, 
chinning the bar, climbing a rope, jumping rope, 
throwing at a mark, wrestling, and the like. 

Among the track and field events suitable at this 
age are the Sixty- Yard Dash, Relay Race, Standing 
Broad Jump, Running High Jump, Running Broad 
Jump. These races can be run in the street if there 
is not space in the yard. The other events can be 
conducted in a very limited space. For the jumping, 
dig up the soil ; or, if this is not allowed, the boys can 
make some mats out of burlap and straw or hay. 
Jumping standards can be easily made by the boys. 

Here is a good opportunity to begin class or group 
athletics. The object of class or group athletics is to 
get everybody in the class to participate, the good, bad, 
and indifferent runners and jumpers alike. In these 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

games or contests that group, class, or school wins 
whose average attainment per pupil is best. For 
example, instead of pitting the best jumpers of one 
school against the best jumpers of another school, 
all, or nearly all, must jump, and the victory goes to 
the school which has the best average. Some good 
events for group athletics are running, jumping, 
chinning, and throwing (for accuracy). 

The following are several ways of conducting the 
running contests. The distance, forty, fifty, sixty or 
more yards, according to the age of the pupils, is 
agreed upon. Each runner is timed separately and 
the average computed ; or the runners may be 
arranged somewhat after the manner of a relay race, 
and the running be kept continuous until all in the 
group have run. This can be done as follows : 

One half of the runners is arranged at one end of 
the course and one half at the other, thus : 

7 o 

5 o 

3 O 

1 n- ► * n 2 

O 4' 

Course O 6 

O o 

At the signal, number one runs the length of the 
course, touching number two at the other end. Num- 
ber two instantly runs the length of the course and 
touches number three, who meantime has stepped into 
the place left by number one. This continues until all 

[23] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

have run. There should be a judge at each end of 
the course to see that starts are fairly made. The 
timer notes the total time it takes each group to run, 
dividing by the number of runners in the group to 
get the average. This is a more interesting race to 
watch than the first. If space permits and two teams 
are run at the same time, the race is very exciting. 

Another way to manage the contest is to arrange 
all the runners of a group at one end of the course. 
The timer stands at the finishing line and starts the 
first runner by raising a handkerchief slowly and 
bringing it down quickly, at the same time starting 
his watch. As the runner comes down the course 
the timer stands with uplifted handkerchief and 
lowers it at the instant the runner crosses the finish- 
ing line, thus starting the second runner, who mean- 
time has stepped to the starting line ready for the 
signal. This continues until all have run. 

The jumping contests may be conducted as fol- 
lows : The players are lined up in the order in which 
they are to jump. Each player is given from one to 
three trials, as may have been agreed upon. If more 
than one trial is given, the best jump is measured 
and the record kept. When all have jumped, the 
total of the individual records divided by the number 
jumping gives the average for the group. 

Sometimes the contest becomes more interesting 
if each jumper of one group is followed by a jumper 

[24] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

of another group. The constantly changing total for 
each side should be announced, or scored where all 
may see. 

Sometimes boys like to manage the contest in this 
way : The first boy jumps. An opponent toes the 
mark made by the first boy's heel and jumps in the 
opposite direction. If he jumps beyond the first 
'' toeing " line, his side is gaining. The total distance 
won or lost by each group is thus constantly shown 
by the distance the last ''heeling" line is in front 
or back of the first '' toeing " line. 

In the chinning, or pull-up, contests each player in 
turn takes hold of a horizontal bar, or the round of 
an inclined ladder, and hangs at full length of arms 
with feet free of support. He then lifts himself 
until his chin comes over the bar. This counts one 
pull-up. After each pull-up the player must lower 
himself the full length of his arms, keeping the feet 
free from support, before he makes another trial. 
The total number of pull-ups divided by the number 
of boys in the group gives the average. 

In the contests in throwing it is usually better, on 
account of the smallness of school yards, to make the 
test one for accuracy rather than one for distance. A 
net or cloth three feet square may serve as a mark 
approximating the convenient reach of a young base- 
man. The distance should vary according to the age 
of the boys, from 90 feet to 1 30 feet, approximating 

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WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

the distance between home base and first base, or 
between home base and second base of a baseball 
diamond. Each player in turn throws a baseball from 
the required distance at the square, three trials being 
allowed. If the ball lands fairly on the square it 
counts a successful throw. The total number of suc- 
cessful throws divided by the number of boys in the 
group gives the average. 

The girls should be given a chance at nearly all the 
games and sports mentioned. Remember, however, 
that girls should develop towards speed, grace, and 
skill, rather than towards strength, and that personal 
encounter, while very desirable for boys under close 
supervision, may be entirely out of place for girls. 

SUGGESTIVE LIST OF PLAYS, GAMES, AND FOLK 
DANCES FOR INTERMEDIATE CHILDREN 

Baseball Games: School Ball; Three Old Cat; Long 
Ball ; Playground Ball ; Indoor Baseball. 

Football Games : Kicking Football ; American Football ; 
Socker Football ; modified Rugby Football. 

Running Games : Tag ; Hill Dill ; Prisoner's Base ; Dare 
Base ; Drop the Handkerchief ; Come with Me ; Bull in the 
Ring ; Sheep Fold ; Fox and Farmer ; Fox ; Cross Tag ; Three 
Deep ; Flag Race, Relay Race, Potato Race, Jump Race ; 
Numbers Change ; Little Hare ; Tommy Tiddler's Ground ; 
Where 's Your Shepherd ? 

Singing Games : London Bridge ; Farmer in the Dell ; 
Looby Loo; I Put My Right Hand In; On the Bridge; I 
Took a Walk One Evening ; The Gay Musician ; Greeting 
and Meeting ; Round and Round the Village ; Did You Ever 
See a Lassie ? 

[26] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

Dances : First of May (Swedish) ; Oxdans (Swedish) ; Reap 
the Flax (Swedish) ; Mountain March (Norwegian); Washing 
Clothes (Swedish) ; May Pole Dance ; Bleking ; Lott ist Todt 

(German). 

Miscellanp:()US : Duck on the Rock (with bean bags); 
Rolly-Pooly; Spud; Dodge Ball, Corner Ball, Keep Ball; Grace 
Hoops; Center Base; Jump Rope; Jackstones; Kite Flying; 
Jumping ; W^restling ; Stick Wresding ; Tumbling ; " Stunts " ; 
Blind Man's Buff; Tops; Tipcat. 

Track and Field Events (boys ten to twelve years of 
age): Sixty-Yard Dash; Relay Race (four boys each to run 
220 yards); Running Broad Jump, Running High Jump, 
Standing Broad Jump. 




Airships 



[27] 



Ill 



Do not think, if you are a grammar-school teacher, 
that you do not need to consider the play life of your 
pupils. Your girls especially need to have their play 
supervised, perhaps even more than at any previous 
age, and your boys certainly require the best play 
opportunities that you can give them. If you are a 
woman, you especially need the advantage that would 
come to you by interesting yourself in the play of 
your pupils. If you are a man, you will forfeit oppor- 
tunity, prestige, and power if you do not. 

Your pupils are old enough to organize, and it will 
be well for them to organize in their efforts to secure 
some simple apparatus, such as bars, rings, ladders, 
swings, teeter ladders, standards, etc. By all means 
encourage organization for the conduct of individual 
athletics (mentioned on page 22) and for the conduct 
of group athletics (mentioned on page 23). This 
organization may take the form that suits the size of 
school, age of pupils, and other local conditions. It 
will be found helpful to elect captains and lieutenants 
to look after the practice of their respective groups in 
preparation for the group contests. A geod captain 
will often greatly improve the average of his team. 

[28] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

When an athletic meet is contemplated, the follow- 
ing officials are recommended by Mr. J. E. Sullivan : 
games committee, to look after details in general, 
the chairman of which represents the committee at 
the meet ; referee, who decides upon all questions 
relating to rules ; starter, who should be provided 
with a 22-caliber revolver and blank cartridges ; 
clerk of course, and assistants, whose duty it is to 
get contestants out for their events ; inspectors, who 
act as assistants to the referee ; judges at finish, 
who must judge in which order the runners finish ; 
field judges, who measure for the field events ; 
timers ; scorers ; announcer ; marshal. (See Spald- 
ing's Athletic Library, Group 12, No. 331, '' School- 
Ground Athletics " ; also Group 12, No. 313, ''Public 
Schools Athletic League Handbook.") 

Very likely many of the boys already belong to 
some boyishly organized ball teams. By all means 
encourage ball playing. If the yard is not suited to 
ball playing, perhaps there could be at least a base 
and backstop, so that the boys could practice pitch- 
ing and batting. If it is dangerous to use a hard 
ball, much fun and profit can be got out of a soft 
playground ball. One can almost always fall back 
upon Indoor Baseball, Two Old Cat, Round Ball, 
and other modified Baseball games, if a small bat 
and soft ball are used. 

In the fall, passing and kicking a football may be 

[29] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

indulged in with little danger to windows or anything 
else. Boys often play very simple Football games 
when limited as to space, without goals, and often 
without even a football. The same may be said of 
Basket Ball, but it is a very simple matter to set up 
two old hoops somehow for Basket Ball goals. 

Many of the suggestions previously made in regard 
to singing games may be recalled here. The races 
are of especial interest. Much can be made of 
group or class contests of various sorts, as previously 
suggested. 

While the girls will be much interested in the 
singing games and the folk dances suggested below 
for this period, they should by no means be denied 
the running games, simple Baseball and Basket Ball 
games, and the use of the apparatus. 

Among the miscellaneous games mentioned below, 
Volley Ball and Captain Ball will be of great interest 
to the boys, and especially to the girls. A brief de- 
scription of these games is given. 

Captain Ball is played as follows : Two captains 
choose sides of any convenient number of players. 
One or more players of each side occupy the central 
portion of the field and are called runners. One 
half of the remaining players, including the captains, 
occupy circles or bases, and one half guard corre- 
sponding circles or bases of the enemy as shown in 
the diagram on the opposite page. 

[30] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

The ball (a basket ball or other large ball) is put 
in play by being tossed up in the center of the field 
between two opposing runners. The object is to pass 
the ball to one of the basemen and from the baseman 
to the captain, thereby scoring a point. The guards 
endeavor to intercept the ball and to pass it to one 
of their own men. Runners have the freedom of the 
field outside the circles. The basemen may not leave 
their circles but may advance one foot beyond the 



®b- 


b® , 


.®- 


.© 


® 




® 




®\ 


@ 


(St 


^® 


A = captain 


a = baseman 


a' = runners a'' 


= guards 


B = captain 


b = baseman 


b' = runners b'' 


= guards 




Capta] 


[\ Ball 





boundar)'. A foul by one side forfeits the ball to a 
baseman of the other side. Fouls are declared when 
a baseman leaves his base, for holding a player, run- 
ning with the ball, kicking or handing a ball, snatch- 
ing or holding a ball. The side scoring the larger 
number of points wins. 

Volley Ball is played as follows : Two sides of any 
convenient number of players are chosen. The court 
should be about fifty feet by twenty feet, but a smaller 
court may be used. A net (a strip of old canvas or 

[31] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

cheesecloth would do) is stretched across the middle 
of the court. A player serves the ball from the rear 
line of the court over the net and into the enemy's 
field. The ball must be returned before it strikes the 
ground. Batting upward with the palm of the hand 
only is permitted. A failure to return the ball in this 
way over the net and into the enemy's field counts 
one for the other side. A faulty service — that is, 
serving the ball under the net, or so that it touches 
the net, or out of the opponent's court, or striking the 
ball more than once in serving — counts one for the 
side receiving. If a player touches the net it counts 
one point for the other side. The side first scoring a 
certain number of points agreed upon wins the game. 



SUGGESTIVE LIST OF PLAYS, GAMES, 

AND FOLK DANCES FOR GRAMMAR 

AND HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS 

Baseball Games : Long Ball ; Playground Ball ; Punch 
Ball; Indoor Baseball; Kick the Ball; Playground Cricket; 
Baseball. 

Football Games : Kicking Football ; American Foot- 
ball ; Socker Football ; modified Rugby Football ; Football. 

Running Games : Cross Tag ; Hill Dill ; Prisoner's Base ; 
Three Deep ; Relay Race, Flag Race, Potato Race ; Day and 
Night. 

Singing Games : London Bridge ; Zum Zum in the Garden. 

Dances: Tarantella (Italian); The Crane (Hungarian); 
Csardas (Hungarian); Jig (Irish); Maypole Dance (Eng- 
lish); Comarinskaia (Finnish); Harvest; Mountain March 

[32] 



WHAT TO DO AT RECESS 

(Norwegian); Scotch Reel ; Morris Dance (English); Fjalnas- 
polska (Russian); Hungarian Solo (Hungarian). 

Miscellaneous: Leap Frog; Jumping Race; Circus; 
Jump Rope; Medicine Ball, Mount Ball, Volley Ball, Captain 
Ball, Straddle Ball; Jumping; Boxing; Tumbling; Wrest- 
ling ; " Stunts " ; Street Hockey ; Kite Flying ; Grace Hoops ; 
Basket Ball. 

Track and Fieud Events (boys thirteen to fifteen years 
of age) : Eighty-Yard Dash, Relay Race (four boys each to run 
220 yards), Three-Legged Race; Putting Eight-Pound Shot; 
Running Broad Jump, Running High Jump; Hop, Step, and 
Jump. (Boys sixteen to eighteen years of age): loo-Yard 
Dash, 220-Yard Dash, 880-Yard Run ; Running High Jump, 
Running Broad Jump ; Putting Twelve-Pound Shot ; Relay 
Race dour boys each to run 440 yards); Hop, Step, and Jump ; 
Hurdle Race. 



[33] 



ANNOUNCEMENTS 



EDUCATION 
BY PLAYS AND GAMES 

By G. E. JOHNSON 

Superintendent of Playgrounds, Recreation Parks, and Vacation 

Schools of Pittsburg, Pa. 



i2mo. Cloth. 234 pages. Illustrated. List price, 90 cents ; mailing price, $1.00 



R 



MaD plays only when he is a human being in the fullest sense of the 
wocd, and has reached full maturity only when he plays. — Schiller 

ECOGNIZING its powerful influence for good in various direc- 
tions, educators are giving increasing attention to play. 



"pERHAPS no educator is better fitted to write a book on play than 
-'■ Superintendent Johnson, who has made a special study of the 
subject for many years, and whose work in the schools and recreation 
grounds has given him a splendid equipment of practical experience. 



rpDUCATION BY PLAYS AND GAMES presents a curriculum 
-■— ' of plays and games graded from mere infancy to the middle teens, 
and analyzes them to show the chief mental and physical activities 
developed by each. There is a discussion of the meaning of play, of the 
relation of play to work, and of the history of play and its application 
to education. 



'npHE games were chosen from a thousand or more, and their num- 
-*■ ber and careful grading form one of the strongest features of 
the book. Each one has been given place in accordance with the needs 
of the child. 



TpXCELLENT illustrations clearly demonstrate the different plays 
^^ described. 



GINN AND COMPANY Publishers 



THE GULICK HYGIENE SERIES 

By LUTHER HALSEY GULICK, M.D. 
Recently Director of Physical Training in the Public Schools of New York 

Book I. GOOD HEALTH 

l2mo. Cloth. 172 pages. Illustrated. List price, 40 cents 

Here, tucked away in the lines of an interesting story, the young readet 
finds out how to care for the eyes, ears, and teeth, how to get impure air 
out of a room and pure air in, why he should go to bed early and regu 
larly, and how to perform these duties intelligently. 

Book II. EMERGENCIES 

i2mo. Cloth, xiv + 173 pages. Illustrated. List price, 40 cents 
What to do in case of accidents, and particularly how to avoid them, 
is the burden of this second volume. The discussion is based upon 
actual occurrences which appeal to the dramatic instinct of the child, 
and the treatment conforms to the very latest and simplest methods of 
prevention and alleviation. 

Artificial respiration, care in crossing streets, the soap-and-water 
treatment for ivy poisoning, are suggestive topics in this helpful book. 

Book III. TOWN AND CITY 

l2mo. Cloth. 272 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents 

Civic hygiene is here taught in a most alluring manner. Boys and girls 
learn that there are some small responsibilities that they may shoulder 
at once, and thus protect themselves from the dangers of impure milk, 
tuberculosis, overcrowded houses, accumulated garbage and rubbish, and 
many other evils of town and city life. 

Book IV. THE BODY AT WORK 

l2mo. Cloth. 247 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents 

"The Body at Work" treats such matters of physiology as were too 
difficult or too technical to be discussed in ** Good Health." The func- 
tion and structure of bone and muscle are presented in such a way as to 
bring out the advantages and disadvantages of bone and muscle habits. 
Muscular exercise forms an avenue of interest through which the student 
is taught all necessary knowledge and much that is new concerning respi 
ration and digestion. 

Book V. CONTROL OF BODY AND MIND 

i2mo. Cloth. 267 pages. Illustrated. List price, 50 cents 

" Control of Body and Mind'* is written with the conviction that such 
subjects as Attention, Choice, Will Power, Habit, and Character should 
be and can be made both interesting and inspiring to young people. In 
the treatment of each subject, function rather than nerve anatomy receives 
the most attention. 

GINN AND COMPANY Publishers 



m B uQ 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
JUN • tSM 



